I welcome Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) division chief Tsai Meng-liang's (蔡孟良) pronouncement that local employers will be fined and even deprived of the right to hire foreign workers if they are found to have violated labor laws or contracts, including by not providing regular days off to immigrant workers.
This would prevent employers from being able to send home foreign workers who stand up for their rights when a company violates them.
I suggest that the CLA make this an official policy and circulate it to the local labor bureaus and the labor representatives here from other countries, which handle such complaints.
I would just like to clarify what Tsai meant when he said that "employment and management of foreign workers must comply with existing law and working contracts."
In an official letter by the CLA sent to us on July 4 last year, the labor body said that side agreements amending the original employment contract signed in the Philippines would be considered valid and binding.
This also pertains to the guaranteed days off provision in such a contract.
This would contradict the CLA's own admission in the same letter that days off are guaranteed in Article 7 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The UN says that such rights are not granted to workers by governments or employers -- they are basic, inalienable human rights.
The CLA needs to take a clearer stance on this issue, so that the 81 percent of Filipina caretakers and domestic workers who have their days off unfairly limited or receive no days off at all will not be deprived of their inalienable human rights.
AAron Ceradoy
Taipei
US President Donald Trump has gotten off to a head-spinning start in his foreign policy. He has pressured Denmark to cede Greenland to the United States, threatened to take over the Panama Canal, urged Canada to become the 51st US state, unilaterally renamed the Gulf of Mexico to “the Gulf of America” and announced plans for the United States to annex and administer Gaza. He has imposed and then suspended 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico for their roles in the flow of fentanyl into the United States, while at the same time increasing tariffs on China by 10
As an American living in Taiwan, I have to confess how impressed I have been over the years by the Chinese Communist Party’s wholehearted embrace of high-speed rail and electric vehicles, and this at a time when my own democratic country has chosen a leader openly committed to doing everything in his power to put obstacles in the way of sustainable energy across the board — and democracy to boot. It really does make me wonder: “Are those of us right who hold that democracy is the right way to go?” Has Taiwan made the wrong choice? Many in China obviously
About 6.1 million couples tied the knot last year, down from 7.28 million in 2023 — a drop of more than 20 percent, data from the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs showed. That is more serious than the precipitous drop of 12.2 percent in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the saying goes, a single leaf reveals an entire autumn. The decline in marriages reveals problems in China’s economic development, painting a dismal picture of the nation’s future. A giant question mark hangs over economic data that Beijing releases due to a lack of clarity, freedom of the press
US President Donald Trump last week announced plans to impose reciprocal tariffs on eight countries. As Taiwan, a key hub for semiconductor manufacturing, is among them, the policy would significantly affect the country. In response, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) dispatched two officials to the US for negotiations, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC) board of directors convened its first-ever meeting in the US. Those developments highlight how the US’ unstable trade policies are posing a growing threat to Taiwan. Can the US truly gain an advantage in chip manufacturing by reversing trade liberalization? Is it realistic to